Forum - View topicAnswerman - Is There A Future For "Spinoff" Anime Conventions?
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1114 Location: Puget Sound |
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The same thing applies there too. Sketch collectors that will spend "thousands of dollars" are an infinitesimally small proportion of the anime fanbase - nobody will notice if they fail to show up. Almost nobody will care or make their decision on whether or not to attend based on the results of the charity auction.
You're still missing the point Bunny. Cons don't see any of the money from a charity auction. None. Zip. Nada. It's bodies lining up at the ticket booth that pay the bills, and that money comes almost exclusively from the "average" fan. While you're concentrating obsessively on a single leaf, there's an entire forest out there you're missing. |
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mdreura
Posts: 106 |
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I appreciate the specific focus on spin-off conventions in this week's column, but I can't help feeling like the question and the answer both miss the contextual forest in their laser-focus on this very specific and unique type of event.
I know that big sites like this tend to focus on big conventions like Otakon and Expo, and it makes sense that a reader would ask about short-lived cons connected to those. But anybody who's spent any time over the past 10-20 years travelling around to the smaller, more regional conventions knows that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of anime, cosplay and Japanese culture conventions that have popped up all over the place, struggled for a couple or maybe five years, only to fade away and mostly be forgotten. To me, what happened to Anime Conji, Otakon Vegas and Japan Expo USA is just a continuation of what's happened to untolled other anime events through the rise and fall of the 2000's anime bubble. When people's interest levels were high, someone organized something in that place and time to satisfy fan's desires for a convention experience, and when people had their fill and it started to fall off, the events quietly folded and went away. And that's probably okay, but I feel like that's an important piece of context that's largely missing from Justin's answer (although not entirely, he does mention the fact that there are a ton of conventions already in nearly every major metropolitan area of the US). |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1748 |
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Not really. Not all charity auctions are for a registered charity and not all proceeds go to that charity. If a convention is a 501(c)(3), then yes, it is for a charity and, for tax purposes, you can claim it because it does go to a registered charity. But most conventions hold auctions which go to their own benefit, such as those conventions that are registered 501(c)(6). Anime Expo is a perfect example of this. They usually will do it under the guise of a 'charity auction', but only a small percentage of the money raised will go towards that noble cause. When a convention holds a 'charity' auction where the charity will receive a small portion of what's raised, where the rest of that money go? To the convention and/or its staff. So, then, yes, in those cases, the convention does receive a lot from those that spend, namely, the sketch collectors who spend a lot on artwork. |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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MCM Glasgow has got bigger every year. There's not been a decent con in Scotland before it appeared. |
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Stampeed Valkyrie
 Posts: 830 Location: PA |
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Interesting article..
I've been an on again off again follower of Otakon since its inception at State College.. before the gathering was coined Otakon. I followed it pretty regularly as it moved around trying to find a home, and eventually landed in Baltimore.. my last Otakon Experience was in 2012. Which coincided with my first Experience of AX.. In the time period I have been to many conventions on the east coast.. Anime Next in NJ, Anime USA in VA, and many 1 shots that just never made it. As for spin offs. I attended my first Otakon Vegas this past year in 2016.. after much prodding from friends and family that attended the con the earlier year. It was what I expected.. a smaller venue with better interaction from guests.. which is what small cons should excel at. From my Experience Otakon Vegas is not hurting.. if anything they are pushing the size constraints of their current venue. I had other issues with Otakon Vegas most notably the "excessive charging" for autographs by one VA. But nothing that would stop me from going again. I'd encourage those in the area to check it out. |
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VinceA
 Posts: 126 Location: Bayonne, NJ |
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I'd prefer not to be beholden to either industry or direct-funding from fans. We don't get money from either to bring our guests over. If a fan directly helped fund a guest they may get very territorial or demanding since they spent their money directly to get the guest. I don't need our Guest Relations department to have to deal with the intricacies of different levels of attendees. It would get messy in short order. |
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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There may not be a lot in the way of "news", but there are certainly plenty of after-action reports or case studies, if you know where to look. Like the one this site ran on the Anime Boston spin-off Providence Anime Conference. The Con That Failed |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Japan Expo USA wasn't quite done yet. I remember in October of last year, they attempted to do a Japan Expo LA at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It just...came and went. But if Japan Expo's tried twice, they're likely to try a third time.
With Comic-Con, some of them were independently-run conventions that were bought up by Comic-Con and had its name changed to "Comic-Con (name of location)" or "(name of location) Comic-Con." I don't know what else changes about them, but if there's a case of a comvention's name brand being big enough to sell tickets on name alone, it's Comic-Con. They don't have to deal with starting from scratch somewhere. They just use an existing convention's momentum. In addition to PAX, I can see MAGfest being something that could expand to other locations too. It has tremendous brand-name recognition. Not sure about South by Southwest though even though that convention's downright massive and lasts a whole two weeks.
Unfortunately, I don't see it returning any time soon. It looked kind of expensive to run.
Having too many collectors or appealing mainly to collectors at the expense of the normal audience can make an industry suffer though, like what happened to American comic books. But I know this is an apples-and-oranges comparison.
I don't fully understand what you mean. Do you mean that a convention ought to be funded largely by a few people who pay large amounts of money? I know mobile gaming currently operates in such a way, albeit with those few whales making many small purchases rather than a few large ones. I have not heard of any large convention that's run in that way. Regardless of what the convention is for, once it reaches a certain size, I always see industry sponsorship. I don't know of any large convention that's entirely sustained via its attendees. Small ones, yes. Some medium-sized ones, yes. But not large ones. Heck, even county fairs and state fairs get corporate sponsorship. I know both the L.A. Fair and the OC Fair do. |
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xstylus
 Posts: 263 |
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You can look up the SPJA's financial records or go to their office and view them. They're required to as a non-profit, and I think those records will show your assumption to be incorrect.
Not really, but even so, it wasn't going anywhere, and I think they realized that. It was competing against WonderCon and SakuraCon (as well as Anime Boston, distance notwithstanding). |
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PMDR
Posts: 140 |
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All the back and forth about art auctions at anime cons got me to thinking: why DO anime cons even have these auctions? Is it merely because the big fan cons have had auctions for years, and if so, does that make it something anime cons should be copying?
I used to think about this a lot as a con admin; how many of the things we were doing were being done mainly because "every con HAS to have _____!" which could be a specific panel, events like dances, formal balls, art shows, art auctions, etc. As noted in the OP, everything a con does cost. You need a room to hold an event. That costs. They may charge a fee to lock and unlock the door. Woo. I loved those. You need sound system, special carpet, chairs set out or taken up, tables with tablecloths, trash cans, even whether the air conditioning will be on or off can be a cost. So when someone casually decides they want to do an extra panel or suddenly there has to be a dance event AND it needs a wooden dance floor that has to be rented AND the room has to be emptied out by 11:59PM or a whole second day is charged... you can lose sleep and hair trying to cope with cost explosions from simple requests. This sort of stuff can challenge even the best con financial management. Most cons spend deep into the red to put on a show hoping ticket sales at the door will bring in cash flow they literally need to pay for the various hotel fees come Monday morning. When you realize that credit card payments and Paypal (everybody's favorite way to pay) can take days or weeks to actually pay, you may be well home and rested and back to normal life before the con actually gets paid by the credit card company for the ticket you bought at the door. This and other things like cost overruns and unforeseen expenses put incredible pressure on cons and one or two mistakes can cause a devastating financial problem. In other words, this stuff is hard to do. And not every con can make it work every year, year after year. |
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Cutiebunny
Posts: 1748 |
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You would usually specify, in a legal contract, what both parties would receive from the business arrangement. That contract would cover how much the attendee would pay and what, if anything, they would receive in return. If the paying attendee became too demanding, you would simply remind them of the contract, and if that weren't enough to stop them, there would be no reason to continue doing business with them in the future. Every person I've met that can and does drop thousands of dollars on sketches per year are very well behaved and know the value of a good business relationship. They're not about to misbehave or cause a scene because they feel entitled to more favors than their contract stipulated. @ Leafy - What I'm saying is that, when a convention advertises that it is looking for sponsors, to perhaps not be so quick as to dismiss a private party that might want to provide funds to sponsor a specific type of guest. Instead of writing them off because they're not industry, why not respond and see where that partnership can go? While I think it's unrealistic for a convention to rely on well funded attendees to bring every guest, I think that offering the ability to fund perhaps a couple of guests is not unreasonable, especially in the case of a larger con. |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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Sakura-Con actually has a pretty close relationship with Make-A-Wish (the recipient of the Charity Auction), and has hosted many MAW families over the years. |
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VinceA
Posts: 126 Location: Bayonne, NJ |
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Maybe it's something we'll look into for future years. So far our budget has allowed us to get a pretty good slate of guests. |
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jvowles
Otakon Representative
 Posts: 219 Location: Maryland |
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I do love rumors.... Yeah, that's a load of hooey. First of all, that's not how not-for-profit organizations work, and second of all, the costs of running a big event climb every year. So long as we break even and have a little rainy day fund, we're doing great, but anyone who thinks starting a brand new con in a new city would help drive revenue is living a fantasy. Most new cons fail; our new con would begin on a very firm foundation and with a ton of experience (something like five former chairs of our organization were involved in the creation of OV). It's pretty simple, really. Otakorp Inc. has a mission that involves using pop culture as a gateway to broader cultural exchange. More events means more opportunity to fulfill that mission. With Vegas, there was an opportunity to bring our approach to an area that appeared to be under-served. We worked with local events and local staff and did a lot of ground research before we really considered it. And the feedback we've had seems clear that we didn't misjudge that market, even if we're still learning more about it. Building a small con from scratch let us do several things, in addition to promoting our core mission and satisfying the demand for a local event in Vegas. We worked with locals from the start and had the benefit of some excellent staff who'd earned experience with other local events. Bonuses? We get to grow our staffers, try out programming ideas, and otherwise experiment with stuff that would be far more risky at a huge event like Otakon, while ALSO providing a depth of programming, guests, industry engagement, and so forth that most new shows would lack. From a logistics standpoint, we've been in Baltimore for 17 years and were anticipating a big move -- so it serves a good trial run to start from scratch in negotiating contracts and working out logistics and establishing contacts. In short everybody wins if it works, and if it doesn't quite work, we learn a lot from it regardless. I'd like to have seen a bit more growth, personally, but it seem to be growing slowly and sustainably, rather than blowing out year after year. We've gained some excellent staff who are not only assuming key roles there, but who are also helping with our main event. That's a recipe for success, in my book. |
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jvowles
Otakon Representative
Posts: 219 Location: Maryland |
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And you're missing a very important piece of the puzzle, which is ESPECIALLY critical when it comes to artists like Sushio. You're forgetting two things, in fact: access, and willingness/ability to attend. Unlike most American comic artists, folks like Sushio, or Hide Matsubara, or pretty much any manga-ka or talented director you care to name, rarely operate completely independently. They work brutal hours and face tough deadlines, and any time they spend not working on the core aspects of their jobs needs to be justified. Many in-demand guests are simply not attainable other than through industry connections, usually as part of the promotion of specific properties. Manga-ka get few breaks and are rarely allowed out by their editors, and many are recluses to begin with. Directors and animators of note are constantly under pressure from the studios they contract to. (Even voice actors in japan are frequently under similar restrictions.) The only way you get access to some of them -- even, in some cases, to people you've known personally for some time and would happily do it for a friend -- is through industry. Most of them, if I'm honest, would simply refuse because sitting and sketching for hundreds of strangers all day is boring and exhausting, and doesn't further their career. Being willing to promote shows on behalf of the people who pay for their projects DOES pay off for them. And that's as it should be -- turning talented storyboard artists, manga-ka, directors, etc. into autograph-show-style minor celebrities doesn't make anyone particularly happy, beyond a few people with money to blow on a sketch. Wouldn't you rather have them working to create cool stuff, instead of churning out throw-away art for people who mostly care about resale value? I know I would. |
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